


Log No. 67

by Gracie_Girl87



Category: Red vs. Blue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracie_Girl87/pseuds/Gracie_Girl87
Summary: When in doubt, Dr. Grey knows best. Since the beginning of his recovery, Wash reluctantly records occasional logs of himself to help jog his memory. Most of them were to record his physical progress, but with the ability to talk again, the logs are recommended as a therapeutic tool to help organize his thoughts, flashbacks and memories. According to Dr. Grey, this is good for him and Carolina agrees. So here it goes. Log No. 67.





	Log No. 67

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after Agent Washington has been shot in the neck in Season 15 but before his reappearance in Season 16. Teen and Up Audiences rating is given for blood and vomiting.

Wash’s eyes opened wildly. The sheets clung to the sweat that drenched his entire body. As his chest settled to a normal rhythm, he lifted his head from the pillow, which slightly stuck to his face. Specks of blood painted his pillow case where his nose had been. Jesus. Not this shit again. 

Wash glanced over at his alarm clock, which read 4:16am. Rolling his eyes, he pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. The cool of the floor was a welcoming feeling on the bottom of his feet. He yawned at the ceiling but didn’t make any effort of getting up. He muttered a few things into his hands as he came down to lean onto his knees. Dr. Grey this and stupid logs that. He peered at the clock again. 4:17am. A contemplating sigh passed through his nose. 

“Fuck it.” He said to himself, wiping his bloody nose with his shirt.

Noticing the already existing blood on his chest, he carelessly pulled the shirt off over his head. His dog tags jingled lightly, draping themselves down his collarbone. Another welcome feeling of something cool against him. Wiping his nose one more time with the soiled shirt, he tossed it to the foot of the bed, rolled back under his sheets and went back to sleep. 

[Start Log No. 67 6:02am]

Wash gently points his computer camera to center himself in the frame, looking back and forth to his monitor for reference. He’s sitting in an office chair in his room alone, with his bed behind him. You can see the blood on his pillow from a few hours earlier. He coughs loudly into his elbow then adjusts the camera again. Sitting back into his chair he folds his hands in his lap rubbing one of his hands with his thumb thoughtfully. He makes eye contact with the camera, but then turns away. This was so annoying to him. Talking about his feelings to a computer recording was the last thing he felt like doing. His eyes remain engaged with the floor. 

“I keep having this dream.” He quietly starts. “I can’t seem to work past this image. This… feeling.”

Wash looks at the camera. 

“Dr. Grey wants me to really talk through my feelings. She thinks it might help jog my memory. You know, catch it up to speed. Up until now, these logs have only monitored my physical progress. On whether or not my body actually wants to breathe today or if my voice will actually show up and work.”

He coughs then looks back at the floor and rubs his chin as if inspecting his jaw after a punch. He fidgets with his lower lip for a moment. 

“The only reason I’m doing this is because Carolina thinks it’s a good idea to try it. So, here I am, recording Log No. 66. No wait… No. 67.” Forcing air out of his mouth in a loud sigh, he reluctantly continues. “Okay. Here it goes.”

He collected his thoughts in silence, trying to recall every detail from the dreams he’s been having. From the same dream that came to him again last night. His eyes flick back and forth on the ground. 

“I don’t sleep.” He chuckled. “If you could ask anybody from Project Freelancer or ask any of the Reds and Blues, they’ll tell you I don’t. When I do sleep, it’s time to break out the red pen and mark the freaking calendar. ‘Wash slept!’ It would make the headlines at Blood Gulch for sure.”

He pauses to reminisce and think about the guys, but his smile erases slightly.

“But with this,” He says tapping a finger to his throat, “I’m exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever known. Healing is a very draining process. Trust me, I would know. I’ve only done it about a thousand times. I mean, let’s compare: I’ve been shot many times, a few times in the back. Ever since I was able to hold a knife, I liked playing with them, so of course I’ve got a few slices out of me. Maybe a stab wound or two.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “The surgery for my neuro implants to receive an A.I. is definitely up there. But, what happened between me and Epsilon is a different story.” 

He held his breath for a moment, lightly massaging the soft fleshy part of his neuro implants,

“When I do actually sleep, it isn’t for very long. Ever since I was a kid, I had night terrors. I once broke my sister’s nose because she woke me in the middle of one. I punched her so hard she fell to the ground and sprained her wrist too. Of course I didn’t mean to. She just shook me at the wrong time. I was sixteen. God, that was awful.”

He sighs shaking his head and whispers,

“But… this dream I’m having doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels real. Like a memory.” 

Wash pauses knowing what he’s about to say sounds ridiculous.

“In the dream, I’m choking. I have this… never ending feeling of breathlessness. When I am able to breathe, I gag on my own blood. I can feel my blood pooling in the back of my throat and the only way I can breathe is by puking it up before I can gasp for some air. I’m drowning. ….” 

Wash halts for a moment, remembering the horrific feeling. He shakes his head gently to push away the thought of it.

“Choking on my own blood is not made up. I’ve had my fair share of that wonderful experience.” He remarked sarcastically. “But when I open my eyes, in the dream, I see glowing lights. I see glowing orange and yellow strips of light pulsing with some kind of energy.”

Wash closes his eyes to recover the image.

“I’m lying down. I turn my face and see… Locus.” He chuckles opening his eyes, “I know it seems ridiculous, but he was flying us in a ship, of some sort. I open my mouth to talk to him but I only end up spewing my blood onto the floor. He looks down at me and says, ‘Be quiet.’ Heh. Typical Locus, right?” He said shrugging. “I guess he’s just still on my mind. However…. This dream just seems so…. familiar.”

He rubs his chin a bit, examining the stubble that had grown since he last shaved. 

“Anyways, I try to ask him, where are we? What’s happening? Where are we going? What happened to my friends? But all I hear is the blood rushing from my mouth, splashing on the floor.”

Wash suddenly took in the severity of his thoughts. The words he was going to say next had an unexpected weight to them. They bobbed in his throat as he struggled to continue. 

“I can see him so clearly in my head but- Sometimes I can’t- I can’t articulate what about him in that place seems so… real. After I try and talk again, in the dream, Locus taps on his orange consoles and gets up.”

Wash’s eyes brighten as if Locus were in front of him. 

“He got up pretty fast. I got- I got scared, so I tried reaching down for my knife.”

Wash reaches for his hip, thinking he’s in his armor. He pats around for his knife, digging into the pockets of his sleep shorts as if he were going to find it just then. 

“He starts coming towards me. I try to sit up, but I can’t move. I can’t feel anything past my neck. My shoulders, my arms, legs, my feet, nothing. He stands over me… and all I can do is look at him. That’s all I can do. I can’t move so- so I just- stare at him.” 

Wash grips his shorts at the knees nervously balling them into his fists. He isn’t looking at the camera, but rather the space beyond it, through his mind’s eye. His breath quickens,

“He grabs at my face around my mouth and presses my head back down. He tells me again, ‘I said…Be quiet.’ Then… he turned my- my face to the side and he-” 

Wash’s eyes become bewildered. He swallows shakily.

“He- closed his- his other hand around my neck.” He said harshly rubbing at his shoulder as if he were swatting Locus’ hand away. “I can- I can feel his- his hand tightening and he- I can feel his- He put his fingers in-”

He starts hyper ventilating and looks about the room in a slight panic. 

“He puts his fingers in them. In the holes. I can feel his glove inside my- in my throat. I can- I can feel it.”

Shuddering those last few words, tears frantically well up in his eyes. Wash was trapped under Locus’ glove. He could feel it in that moment, the glove around his oozing neck. A shooting pain ran up his nose through his temples. He grips the right side of his head screwing his eyes shut, bracing himself on the desk with his other hand.

“Oh God!” He sobs. “I felt it. It was real. This is- this is real. Gah!”

Blood starts running down his lips from his nose. He grips his hair on both sides of his head and belts an agonizing holler.

“It can’t be real! No! No No No! It- it’s a mistake! Oh God! I can feel his glove- his hand- they’re in my- in my- Oh God!”

His mind flashed bright colors that nearly blinded him. Images of past memories. His hand bloodied from his first gunshot wound. Alien plasma weapons sparking across armor from the attack at his last post. The Project Freelancer training room as bright purple paint shot up his helmet. Falling from a skyscraper in enemy fire. York’s armor erupting in front of him. The gunshot that killed Donut. The Meta shooting his Brute Shot explosives. The Epsilon Unit. The torture from it. The death. The secrets. The battles. The blood. 

“Oh God! Make it stop! GAAHH! Make! It! Stop!”

He stands up quickly but falls to his knees, rolling the chair away. He screams down into the floor pulling at his hair. The gloves. He could feel the gloves. As he lived and breathed he could feel them there now stopping up the blood. Stopping. Up. The… the screaming stops at the violent sound of him heaving up his blood onto the floor. Bracing himself on his elbows, he sobs, gritting the blood out between his teeth. Air. There wasn’t enough air. Blood gargled at the back of his throat. Breathe! Breathe, damn it!

His door slides open. Carolina walks through with a tray of breakfast for him. She immediately tosses it to the bed and runs over to him.

“Okay! Okay okay okay.” She calmly chanted as if saying don’t panic to him, but it was really more for her than it was for Wash. He limply fell onto his side and coiled into himself crying. 

“Come on, Wash.” She pleaded, kneeling down to him. 

Carolina picked him up close her and wrapped her arm around his neck, as if putting him in a choke hold. Taking his head in the crook of her arm, she pressed his head down with her other hand and turned it slightly to the side. He threw both of his hands up, tucking them under his chin hanging onto her elbow.

“Cough.” She commanded. 

Her voice wavered, but she tried to make it steady, hoping to keep him calm. Wash wrenched himself as he coughed up the last sizable splash of blood down to the floor. Carolina could feel the warm sensation soaking into her pants, but did her best to ignore it. Wash spit out whatever was left in his mouth and heaved a heavy sigh of relief. He leaned into her arms, putting his entire weight on her. Carolina knew she had gotten there just in time. Had she walked in any later, he could have potentially drowned himself lying on the floor like that. She bowed her head to meet his and pressed her lips into the back of her hand that still grasped his hair. She could feel him shiver. Wash wrapped an arm around her and curled his face out of her arm. The vomiting had stopped. Thank God. She could feel tears swelling in her eyes and her nose began to burn. Wash cried out an indescribable sob as he pressed his face into her stomach. It took everything in her not to cry over him. She needed to be strong for him. She needed to be his rock, just like the countless times York had been for her in the past. Gliding her hand down his neck, she rubbed his back as he wept into her shirt. He gripped at her elbow that was sticky from the warm blood he had drooled down his chin. 

There they stayed for a long while, until Wash finally salvaged himself. His weeping melted into heavy whimpers, which calmed into a light panting. Soon, he was able to piece himself back together, releasing hot, copper-tinged breaths into Carolina’s shirt. Carolina kept her eyes wide open swallowing this moment whole as she cradled him in her arms. This wasn’t the first time this happened. He would remember something disturbing or something he couldn’t make sense of and then freak out. His nose would run a little red, but never anything this intense. Carolina shook her head lightly, thinking to herself: Damn idiot must have torn open his stitches. Why was he screaming? Dr. Grey told him not to. What could he have remembered? 

Wash reached up to tap her elbow as if they were sparing. Slowly uncrossing her arms, she released him. He drew back from her, staring at the red mess he left in the middle of her shirt.

“David?” She tenderly said in a low voice.

Wash looked down at the floor. There was blood pooling all around her knees, soaking into her grey sweatpants. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and sniffed loudly. Carolina didn’t break eye contact with him. Inside, she was still scolding herself not to lose it in front of him. She needed him to be okay. She needed this moment to have some sort of happy ending. Whenever this happened in the past, he would grab a tissue for his nose and then excitably explain what he remembered. Then he would laugh about how much of a pussy he was for having his nose bleed so much. But Carolina saw things changing in Wash as she spent his recovery time with him at his side. Since the beginning of his time at Project Freelancer, his life hadn’t been exactly perfect. He had been manipulated, ridiculed, used, broken and confused. The amount of pity she felt for him was overwhelming. In her heart, she knew that David was the best of them. He was “Good Guy, Wash” as they called him. Carolina felt her face turning warm as tears rolled down her cheeks. 

He was eight years younger than her. The thought of that sank deep into her stomach. He was the rookie, who turned himself into the soldier he wanted to be. There were times when he was lost, but he bounced back. Just like he always did. From every concussion and every mission and every trial he ever faced, he always came back. But not this time. She bit her lip in an attempt to choke down her need to cry. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she still functioned while he lay on the floor coughing up his own blood. She swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped the tears off of her cheeks. 

Dragging his fingers down from the corners of his mouth across his lower lip, Wash spat onto the floor one last time and leaned forward onto his knees, heavily. The inner walls of his throat were coated with the warm, tacky texture of his blood. His mind felt numb from the rush of flashing memories it just had. There was no focus. He couldn’t find the energy to center himself and focus on anything. Gently closing his eyes, he swayed back and forth for a minute, bowing his head towards the floor. Some blood dripped from his nose into the puddle between his knees, but he paid no mind to it. Sitting up straighter, he brought the collar of his shirt up to wipe his nose and mouth. Carolina repeated herself.

“David?”

Wash blew air through his mouth, pulling himself together one last bit. He opened his eyes. Carolina. Her shirt had a sizeable red blotch in the middle of it. He coughed into his elbow. 

“That looks… awful.” He said hoarsely. 

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I have plenty more shirts.”

“I’m- I’m sorry.”

“Stop it.” She said with a little more force than she intended. “Don’t say that.”

Wash tucked his lip between his teeth and sat back onto his knees silently. She shook her head at herself for scolding him. How could she allow herself to speak so coldly towards him? Suppressing her anger and her overwhelming magnitudes of sadness, she peered through her bangs at Wash with gentle eyes. Standing up, she slowly peeled her pants away from the blood on the floor. Offering a hand to him, she spoke quietly,

“Come on. Let’s go see Dr. Grey.”

“Yeah.” He admitted through an annoyed whisper. “Yeah, okay.” 

Grasping her hand at the wrist he hoisted himself up with a long groan. Carolina started placing his arm over her shoulder, but he quickly pulled away. 

“I’m fine.” He groaned. “I can walk, C.” 

Wash pulled his shirt up over his mouth and coughed as if he were hacking up his lungs. Carolina patted his back as he hunched forward gasping for air. The chest of his shirt now had spots of blood sprayed across it. Carolina assured him,

“I’ll get you a new set of clothes.”

“Over there.” He pointed as he coughed into his shirt again.

“Don’t speak, Wash. You’ll only make it worse.” 

He nodded in agreement pointing to the closet again. She grabbed him things she had seen him wear before and things she knew he would be comfortable in, then turned to escort him out. As he set a foot through the door to leave, he turned back.

“Wait, my-”

“Wash, be quiet.” She scolded again. 

A deathly silence washed over him. Holding his breath, he looked down into Carolina’s bright green eyes with a frightened expression. All he could do was stare at her in amazement with the words that just passed through her lips. He lightly choked on the breath that he held until Carolina noticed the tears in his eyes. She touched his arm in an apology.

“Wash? Wash, I’m sorry.”

He shook at her touch. His face expressed how annoyed he was that he flinched at her hand. Wash turned his head away from her into the hallway to let the tears roll down his face. Running his dry tongue over his blood stained lips, he shuddered a breath out through his teeth and whimpered quietly. A single tear fell down Carolina’s face.

“Wash, what is it you need?”

He rolled his head up to the ceiling in an attempt to stop his tears from falling. Releasing an exhausted breath, he hung his head towards the room and pointed at the computer monitor. Carolina nodded. Leaving him leaning against the door frame, she jogged over to his desk, tip toing over his blood. As she squinted at the computer screen, Wash cupped his face into his palm and winced behind her. With a few clicks on the desk console, Carolina ended the recording. 

[End Log No. 67 6:52am]

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my second official fanfic! Yay! I wrote with a certain motive in mind: to only give narrative to some of Wash's and Carolina's emotions and thoughts, rather than all of them. What they did with their hands and body language was part of the main focus due to the scene taking place during the recording of a computer log. I could have gone deeper into both characters, but I didn't want to take away from the matter at hand, which was simply Wash being held by Carolina. Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Sometimes, friendships survive the worst of times. Sometimes, the deepest narrative is found in silence. All you have to do is just... be quiet.


End file.
